Reasons to Run

Unexpected Perspectives

Coulston’s entire family was in the stands cheering as he placed second in his division of the 1500m, running 5:37.31. Following the race, Coulston says he saw his father crying for the first time that he could remember. Though his pace didn’t even match that of his collegiate 10,000m best, that didn’t matter any more.

"Now the goals are more ‘What can I accomplish?’ and not necessarily ‘How fast can I go?" Coulston says. "It’s rejuvenated things—it’s a whole new challenge. Now that I’ve had a major organ removed from my body, what can I do now? It’s definitely motivating."

C.J. Howard

On Christmas Eve, 2002, C.J. Howard was still groggy when he joined his father in the kitchen, having undergone a biopsy on a lump in his heel the previous day. Until his father spoke, Howard didn’t realize how much his life was about to change.

"The power of denial is a pretty big thing," he says today. "You’re like, ‘I’m a healthy collegiate distance runner—I don’t have cancer.’" But he did. He now knew that the small lump on the left side of his left foot, diagnosed as a harmless bone cyst more than a year earlier, was osteogenic sarcoma, or cancer of the bone. Howard’s father broke the news to him. "I need to tell you that part of the course of action is a below-the-knee amputation," he said to his son.

"I kind of sat back for a second, and I looked up and said ‘OK. What are the world records for an amputee?’" Howard recalls. "That was my immediate response. I have no idea where that came from. To this day I don’t know if it was me being a smart-ass, or what."

Like Quintanilla and Coulston, Howard developed an interest in running before high school, and thrived as soon as he joined a team. "I was never good at the stick and ball sports, so that’s how I got into running—it was a process of elimination," he explains today. "For some reason I was always intrigued when I would see people running, and it was always something I was pretty good at."

Looking back on his high school days, Howard recalls having another motivation for running as well. "A big part of it was trying to formulate an identity, being a 14, 15-year-old kid," he says. "I needed it so I was somebody, to define myself in some way."

Having quickly developed a passion for the training, Howard soon felt a strong identity as a runner. "I would never miss a workout," he says. "If I had a doctor’s appointment and we had some ridiculous workout, like 16 or 20 quarters, I’d go and make that up on my own." Competition, however, didn’t come as easily to him.

"When I really started to love the sport was when I stopped making excuses. Sometimes I was upset with the sport, or I wanted to blame somebody else, and then I just started to accept it as my own failure, and I would just move on from there," he says. "I think it’s maturity—starting to realize that you’re the only one that can control what happens when you run."